Behaviourism/conditioning - Skinner proposed behaviour was more likley to be repreated if a reward is associated with it (rats - conditioning) -Conditioning can explain crimes - stealing = feeling of competence/admiration of peers/material reward/self-esteem > classical conditioning

Evaluation - may be more so to do with the crime rather than imprisonment - post-traumatic stress disorder (Kruppa '91)

Suicide

Follows patterns of anxiety & depressive symptoms - young single men during early periods of coneinment are most at risk

Dooley (1990) >suicide rate in the British prison population is around 4 times that in the population at large - those on remand/awaiting trial & those on life sentences are most at risk

Evaluation - data is limited & shortage of longitudinal studies

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Evaluation of Custodial Sentencing 1

Prison DOES work - punishment it effective if given the right circumstances

Those who offend habituially better off in prison

Prison is aversive and works to motivate the offender to alter their behaviour

Retribution, deterrence, reform & incapacitation

Walker & Farrington (1981) > compared offenders given probation & those sentenced in prison; lower recidivism found in prison group

Provides opportunities for rehabilitation

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Therapies & Strategies used in Treament of Offende

Based on assupmtion offenders lack these skills& aquiring them will reduce rates of re-offending

Goldstein (1986) > data from 30 studies of young offenders; found they yeilded positive outcomes; restricted to duration of programme; 4 out of 5 of those given social skills training didn't generalsie them beyond the environment

Evaluation - recidivism rates more long term measure of SST effectiveness (groups reported more commited offences, but lower conviction); short term benefits; cannot be generalised

Hobbs + Holt (1976) > recorded effects of introducing T.E. to young delinquents; tokens given for obeying rules/doing chores/social interacition; programme showed significant increase in targeted behaviours compared to those not involved

Evaluation - short term benefits/less effective long term;economical & easily evaluated; high degree of commitment from everyone involved; difficult to generalise from institutions to real world;concern about violation of civil rights (negative reinforcement)

Measuring Crime 1

POLICE RECORDING OF CRIME

Once an offence is reported it should appear in the official statistics

Only two thirds of serious crime actually reported is recorded in police files

Amount of unknown crime is known as the dark figure and can be explained by a number of reasons - unreliability of the victime.g. they could forget certain events have happened;methods used to record them are unreliable; ceratin amount of discretion as to what the police choose to report; people may choose not to press charges following initial ocmplaint e.g. domestic violence

Non-custodiale.g. probation ->main type of community penalty & involves the suspension of a sentence, purpose is to keep offenders under control/surveillance whilst providing help for them - "decent, caring face of criminal justice system" - AD. offender is not exposed to criminalising influence of prison; reduces prison over-crowding; less expensive than custodial sentences DISAD. possible chance of re-offending-still in society; difficult to assess; only as good as porbation programme/officers

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Psychological Effects of Imprisonment 1

The removal of an indiviual's liberty is likely to involve immediate psychological effects due to separaion from partner, friends & families - individual differences in the way people adjust

A type of socialisation calledPRISONISATION can occur - eating/sleeping habits change/prison slang adopted/norms are accepted to reinforce and us/them mentality

Depression

Symptoms such as sleeplessness/anxiety/restlessness occur around the beginning of a sentence

Many offenders soon adjust, it is the inital concern about how they will cope after sentence which may be the cause of the on bringing of these symptoms

Zamble & Porpino (1988) > indicated that early into sentences prisoners show high levels of depression, which steadily decline over time

Limitations = only used in arson/serial ****/murder cases; usually last resort following serious crime with few clues & no obvious evidence; cannot be considered evidential in targeting particular suspect; may result in weak prosecution case

There are 5 main catergories used to develop an offender profile:

Nature of the assault = murder is top of scale - a complex crime usually imvolves an intelligent offender which suggests there may be interrogation issues

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Offender Profiling 2

Timing of the offences = does time period have significance e.g. absence of offending while in prison/abroad/hosptial - is the time of offending period changing due to caution/appetite?

Location = isolated/stocked with items they might need, may be precise targeting e.g. alone victims - majority of offenders offend in small radius to their home MORE

Offender Profiling - Approaches 1

TOP-DOWN APPROACH

Classification system developed by the FBI based on - in depth interviews with convicted offenders (36 serial); collection of detailed information from members of Behavioural Science Unit; combination of this information with evidence fromcrime secne, victim & forensics - offenders then classified as organised or disorganised

British method was developed from the work of David Canter who was interested in aspects of criminal behaviour - more scientific appraoch was used based on psychological thoeries & methodologies; attempts to demonstrate consistencies within the actions of offenders & identifiable differences between theme.g. what is the same & what is different - interpersonal coherence/significance of time & place/forensic awareness

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Offender Profiling - Approaches 2

John Duffy Case Study > serial ****** & murderer - Canter provided profile that assisted his arrest; by gathering information from crime scene he produced a detailed description; included things such as his age/living arrangments/sort of area most likely to live in

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Evaluation of Offender Profiling

There are a number of criticisms regarding the FBI approach:

Developed using a small sample of serious offenders

The crime classifications are crude

Details of the development & efficiency of the method have never been published

General evaluation includes:

Only useful for certain crimes

Police may be selective over what they choose to attend to from the profile

Too much importance may be attatched to it and a lack of convincing evidence overlooked

Problematic to estimate the success of offender profiling

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Theories of Offending - Psychoanalytic

Bowlby (1994) > maternal deprivation hypothesis; group of delinquent children with a history of offences were found to have more difficulties with parents and had greater emotional difficulty than non-delinquents - there is also a theory that delincquency can result from over-persmissive parenting, over-permissive parents the superego within an individual meaning they may not properly develop and anti-social behaviours may be poorly controlled leading to criminal behaviour

Strengths -ideas behind psychoanalysis are appealing and it is now being seriously considered; has many applications; flaws in scinetific research - lack of control groups and basings findings on retro-spective ancedtoal evidence

Limitations -findings have supportive bias - important evidence is selected, other findings ignored; theory doesn't stand up to rigourous scientific approach since it is difficult to test

combination of these features found in criminal population - all measured using standard questionnaires - links between personality & crime become clear when considering individuas ability to adapt to environment & learn rules of society - according to this theory individuals with high score on extraversion & neuroticism may be more common in criminal populations

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The Criminal Personality 2

Strengths - research seems to confirm theory

Limitations- little support for E/N/P combination; criticism of the authority with which this idea has been presented & accepted as it lacks the evidence for it's theoretical foundation; questionnaire method